Va Never Ceases To Amaze Me

[Pete53]

Yesterday, I went to VA to get Med Refills and Blood work. Some good news and some bad.

While I was there I popped into Fee Service and asked if they could provide the name and number of a Dentist I could use for my recent fee service authorization to get routine dental work done. First I was told to go to Baylor and get it with the program that allows Dental Students to practice which is actually pretty close to what the VA provides anyway.

I went to the Administrative Offices and asked why Fee Service could not provide a list of Dentists who accepted fee service as it was disheartening to be turned down so many times.

Anyway to make a long story shorter it took the Manager of the VA clinic 45 minutes to find a single dentist who was accepting fee service payments in my area. The only reason he bothered was an Administrator asked him why he could not provide it on request.

[john999]

I am going to the VA dentist tomorrow and I will see what they have to say about my crown that my private dentist said needed replacement. I trust my private dentist but if I can get this done for free that would be good. If the VA dentist says I don't need a new crown I think I will just go back to my own dentist and pay to get the work done. I am not going to sit there and have the VA bullshit me and then have to lose the tooth later. Any ideas on what I could do if the VA underestimates my problem?

Peter, I wonder what the reason is why no dentists in your area want to deal with fee base? Maybe they have had trouble getting paid in the past. I know the VA pays what they think is reasonable which no one else accepts. I got fee base to reimburse me for three crowns but they paid significantly less than what it actually cost me. It is a long story and I am not entitled to fee base normally. The VA practically accused my dentist of being a crook which he is not. You know we are being treated as second class citizens. This is Jim (VA) Crow.

John

[Berta]

Good for you Pete- I hope you dont have to go too far for this dentist.

John- you raised a good point-

any vet with diabetes should not hesitate to ask the dentist if the DM is in any way causing their dental problems.

Reason I mention-it took me a long time to comprehend a condition my husband had, well documented in his VA med recs during a hospitalization ,- oral candidia, and it was not only a symptom of high glucose in the saliva, but also could cause considerable damage to teeth and gums.

They treat this with Swish and Swallow - aka Nyastatin. They call it thrush too.

When I prepared my claim ( and this was one of the smoking guns I used to prove they never diagnosed diabetes but that he had it) I found some

dentistry sites as to problems diabetics have have with their teeth:

such as http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art...rticlekey=52930